Sports Report: It's been a tough past few days for Caitlin Clark

Hello, I'm your host, Houston Mitchell, and I'll get straight to the news.

From Chuck Silken: Caitlin Clark had a bit of a rough weekend.

On Sunday, the Indiana Fever rookie recorded the fewest points and lowest shooting percentage of both her 11-game WNBA career and her four-year career at the University of Iowa in a blowout loss to the New York Liberty.

This came one day after Clark was hip-checked off the ball by Chicago Sky player Chennedy Carter and taken to the floor, an incident that seemed to spark a heated reaction from Sky rookie Angel Reese and led some observers to question when Clark's teammates would begin to defend her.

But on the bright side, the Fever won the game, 71-70, for their second win of the season. Clark scored 11 points on 36 percent shooting (4-of-11) on a night when the team shot 39 percent from the field compared to Chicago's 41 percent shooting. Clark also had eight rebounds and six assists.

“Earlier this season, I thought if we were shooting like this, we wouldn't have won games because we weren't as tenacious and it affected our defense,” Clark told reporters after the game. “So I'm proud of us. I thought we were really tenacious.”

Clark's weekend generated a lot of controversy, including a bizarre rant on ESPN's “The WNBA” on Monday in which Pat McAfee said Clark used offensive language while trying to defend her and her status in the WNBA. McAfee later apologized.

To summarize:

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TJ Simmers passes away

From David Wharton: There was no room for compromise with TJ Simers.

If you were a Southern California sports fan, a top athlete or coach, or anyone who read his page two column, you either loved him or hated him.

And that was exactly what he wanted.

The outspoken and controversial Mr. Simmers, who left The Times after 23 years at the paper in trademark fashion by fighting with editors and suing the paper, died of brain cancer on Sunday at the age of 73.

“TJ would turn left when everybody else turned right,” former Times sports editor Bill Dwyer said. “Everybody listened to him. It was something different.”

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Dodgers

From Dylan Hernandez: The Dodgers are winning again.

They swept the New York Mets before winning the final two games of a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies over the weekend.

Mookie Betts homered in a 4-0 series win over the Rockies on Sunday at Dodger Stadium. Freddie Freeman also homered, and second-year right-hander Gavin Stone pitched five scoreless innings to further solidify his place in the starting rotation.

The Dodgers have the second-best record in the National League with a 38-23 record, 6.5 games behind the San Diego Padres for second place in the division.

But none of them were convincing.

None of this answered the long-standing questions about them.

None of this seemed like compelling evidence as to why they wouldn't be smashed in the postseason like they have been the past three years.

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Dodgers notes: Evan Phillips' return is 'pretty exciting' for bullpen

Padres players under investigation by MLB for baseball gambling

MLB Score

MLB standings

angel

Jo Adell hit a double in the eighth inning and two flyouts scored the tying run, and the Angels beat the San Diego Padres 2-1 on Monday night.

Tyler Anderson pitched through the seventh inning and Willie Calhoun hit an early one-run single to end the Angels' five-game losing streak. Calhoun had two of his four hits and the Angels improved to 8-21, the worst home record in the major leagues, in the first game of a six-game homestand.

Adell led off the top of the eighth inning with a double off the right field fence against Adrian Morejon (1-1). Adell advanced to third on a Zach Neto flyout and then scored easily on a long hit to center field off pinch hitter Luis Guillorme's Jeremiah Estrada.

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Angels box score

MLB Score

MLB standings

NBA Playoff Schedule

Pacific Time

NBA Finals

Thursday, Boston, 5:30 p.m., ABC
Sunday, Boston, 5 p.m., ABC
Wednesday, June 12, Dallas, 5:30 p.m., ABC
Friday, June 14, Dallas, 5:30pm, ABC
*Monday, June 17, Boston, 5:30 p.m., ABC
*Thursday, June 20, Dallas, 5:30 p.m., ABC
*Sunday, June 23, Boston, 5 p.m., ABC

*-If necessary

boxing

From Eduardo Coich: Jennifer Lozano is proud of her nickname “La Traviesa,” which means “The Mischievous Woman” in English, a name her grandmother called her not only because of her aggressive and courageous boxing style, but also because of the pranks she would get up to as a child.

She has used the nickname in honor of her late grandmother since the start of her boxing career and will also use it as a member of the U.S. Olympic boxing team in Paris this summer.

“Even after she passed away, I carried that nickname with so much pride and honor because she gave it to me,” Lozano said of her grandmother, Virginia Sanchez Cuevas.

The 21-year-old fighter earned her ticket to Paris 2024 in October with a silver medal in the 50 kg (110 lbs) at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile. Lozano, who grew up in Laredo, Texas, is the first female Olympic fighter in any sport from her hometown near the Mexican border. She hopes her Olympic qualification gives hope to many people in Laredo and across Mexico that people from small places can achieve big things.

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NHL Playoff Schedule

Pacific Time

Stanley Cup Final

Saturday, Florida, 5 p.m., ESPN
Monday, June 10, 5 p.m., Florida, ESPN
Thursday, June 13, Edmonton, 5 p.m., ESPN,
Saturday, June 15, Edmonton, 5 p.m., ESPN
*Tuesday, June 18, 5 p.m., Florida, ESPN
*Friday, June 21, Edmonton, 5 p.m., ESPN
*Monday, June 24, Florida, 5pm TBD, ESPN

*-If necessary

Sports Day

1870 – Ed Brown becomes the first black jockey to win the Belmont Stakes aboard Kingfisher.

1927 – The United States defeats Great Britain, 9½ to 2½, to win the first Ryder Cup golf tournament.

1974 – The NFL grants Seattle a franchise.

1987 – At the Madrid Games, Danny Harris beat Edwin Moses in the 400m hurdles, ending the longest winning streak in athletics. Moses had won 122 consecutive races dating back to August 26, 1977.

1988 – Steffi Graf of West Germany beat 17-year-old Natalia Zvereva of the Soviet Union 6-0, 6-0 in 32 minutes to win her second consecutive French Open.

1990 – Penn State is elected to the Big Ten, becoming the league's 11th member and the first to join the Midwest-based conference since Michigan State in 1949.

1994 – Haile Gebrselassie becomes the first Ethiopian to set a world record in the men's 5,000 metres, clocking 12 minutes 56.96 seconds in Hengelo, Netherlands.

1998 – The Galaxy's Harut Karapetian scores three goals in five minutes to outscore the Dallas Burn 8-1, completing the fastest hat trick in MLS history, with a seven-goal margin of victory that's an MLS record.

2005 – Eddie Castro wins 9 of 13 races at Calder Race Track in Miami, setting a North American record for the most wins by a jockey at a single track in a single day.

2008 – The Detroit Red Wings defeat the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-2 in Game 6 to win their fourth Stanley Cup in 11 seasons.

2009 – Randy Johnson leads San Francisco to a 5-1 victory over the Washington Nationals in the first game of a doubleheader to earn his 300th career win, becoming just the 24th major league pitcher to reach this milestone.

2011 – Li Na becomes the first Chinese player to win a Grand Slam singles title, defeating Francesca Schiavone 6–4, 7–6 (0) in the French Open final to win her fifth title and her first on clay.

2016 – Garbine Muguruza beat defending champion Serena Williams 7–5, 6–4 at the French Open to win her first Grand Slam title, denying an American player a record-tying 22nd major title.

2019 – San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy wins his 1,000th career win as a Giants manager with a 9-3 victory over the New York Mets.

The Associated Press compiled